Everybody Wants A Hero: But You Have to Pick Wisely (And Revise When Necessary!)
And it will always be necessary
I have had a difficult time over the last few years understanding why I am the only one speaking publicly about the abuse allegations in the Feldenkrais Guild Trainer community.
Keep in mind the word “publicly.”
There have been hundreds of people speaking out on the allegations behind the scenes in Feldenkrais forums and Facebook groups. But I am the only one that has created a public post on the topic. The first that I wrote was in December of 2020 here and I also did two short YouTube videos here and here and posted them on Facebook as well.
There has been little response.
Why?
I was thinking today about how nearly everyone wants a role model and a hero. Everybody wants a Jesus Christ, Buddha, Dalai Lama, or some other type of role mode to look up to. Non-religious role models might be wealthy men such as Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates. I do not know much about role models that women are more likely to choose, but I loved how many people were speaking about Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Notorious RBG) in the years before her death. People of different genders and nationalities have different images in their minds. And people have different role models in different contexts of their lives.
In the Feldenkrais community, Moshe Feldenkrais is a role model.
And that can be a problem because the historical Moshe Feldenkrais is much different than the mythological role model that has been created by his students for public consumption. And the image of Moshe that people carry around can be one based on nothing more than their experience doing Feldenkrais. The method can be gentle and subtle. That must mean that Moshe was a gentle and subtle person as well, right?
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